Author: John Mason

People and businesses leverage when an economy expands over an extended period of time.  The last major period of leveraging in the United States occurred over the past fifty years beginning in the early 1960s.  This...

Commercial and Industrial loans in the banking system continue to rise.  Over the past thirteen week period business loans at all commercial banks in the United States increased by almost $37 billion.  These loans...

Over the past fifty years, the United States economy, as measured by real gross domestic product, has grown at a compound rate of growth of 3.1 per cent.  Yes, there have been cycles in which economic growth substantially...

One constant seems to run through my whole professional career.  The regulators impose some new rules…and within a reasonable period of time, the private sector finds ways to get around the new rules.  Then the...

Check this out…European Banks Too Fragile To Afford Greek Default…http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-06/european-banks-capital-shortfall-means-greece-debt-default-not-an-option.html.And, read my post:...

Recommended read this morning, the op-ed piece by Kenneth Rogoff, “The Global Fallout of a Eurozone Collapse,” in the Financial Times....

The Federal Reserve continues to pump reserves into the commercial banking system and the majority of these reserves are getting into the hands of foreign-related financial institutions and then heading offshore.  On May...

In a solvency crisis, the question of credibility always arises.  The issue is one of trust…who can one trust?The European Banking Authority (EBA), which opened for business this year, is now under the gun.One of the...